Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength.

In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.